Internet disrupted in Somaliland amid protests over postponed elections

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NetBlocks metrics confirm a major disruption to internet service on multiple providers in Somaliland from the early morning of Thursday 11 August 2022. The disruption comes as protesters with clashes leading to multiple casualties over the postponement of elections.

Real-time network data show the disruption coming into effect on mobile and fixed-line internet providers supplying Somaliland by Thursday morning, corroborating user reports of outages in multiple cities in the autonomous region which lies north of Somalia.

What’s happening in Somaliland?

Opposition party members had predicted in advance that internet access would be cut ahead of the scheduled protests. Somaliland authorities approved the demonstration, with opposition and the government agreeing that protests were to take place at party headquarters, however activity has since spread to multiple cities. Authorities stated that opposition leaders would be accountable for any issues emerging during the protests.

NetBlocks recommends against the use of network disruptions and social media restrictions to counter protests, given their disproportionate impact to fundamental rights including freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

Methodology

NetBlocks diffscans, which map the IP address space of a country in real time, show internet connectivity levels and corresponding outages. Purposeful internet outages may have a distinct network pattern used by NetBlocks to determine and attribute the root cause of an outage, a process known as attribution which follows detection and classification stages.

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